Music, text, and drama in Dallapiccola's "Il Prigioniero"
Item
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Title
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Music, text, and drama in Dallapiccola's "Il Prigioniero"
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Identifier
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AAI3187406
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identifier
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3187406
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Creator
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Samuel, Jamuna S.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Joseph N. Straus
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Music | Biography | Theater
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Abstract
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Luigi Dallapiccola (1904--75) wrote the opera Il Prigioniero (1943--48) while still in the process of assimilating the twelve-tone technique. Contrasting with some of the conservative trends of his colleagues under Fascism, the composer was the first in Italy to adopt the method, which he claimed to have chosen for its expressive resources. My dissertation is the first study to be nearly exclusively devoted to this opera. The first and final chapters address works preceding and following the opera--- Canti di prigionia and Canti di liberazione, respectively, forming with The Prisoner a triptych of "protest" works---placing the work in its chronological context both in terms of acquisition of the twelve-tone technique and Dallapiccola's biography.;The central chapters address three main issues: first, the role of octatonicism in Dallapiccola's application of the twelve-tone method; second, the effects of his compositional choices on the setting of the libretto; and third, the actual organization of the music by twelve-tone rows and aggregate completion.;What emerges is a nuanced definition of the opera as a "twelve-tone work." I discuss octatonic and diatonic temperings of the chromatic completion and employment of twelve-tone rows, and show how the twelve-tone technique is used to engage the form and meaning of the text. I use set-class theory to show how coherence within variety is achieved in the music alone regardless of the twelve-tone process, through repeated motives in association with certain formal functions. All of these compositional resources ultimately converge on stage in the service of drama---a drama of characters not only presenting a fictional prisoner's story, but also voicing the concerns of Dallapiccola himself in his own life and times.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
